Lost in Space

Spore really needs a way to annotate stars. Or at least wormholes. Since, you know, ecodisasters and crap happen back on your homeworld and you need to get back in a hurry and when you're five wormholes deep in the network, hurry isn't about to happen unless you remember which way to jump at each step...

Can you rename planets you own? I could make that work...

I had no network last night. I should have used the time to prepare for the game tonight or write something or whatever, but while I did a little of that, I mostly ended up playing video games. Spore was one of them, of course. It's tedious and frustrating, but it's got that 'can't quit until after I take care of this one last thing' vibe, like civilization etc.

The internet came back on around midnight. I could tell because my virus scanner decided to update itself, stealing focus. I wish it wouldn't do that. The stealing focus, I mean -- updating itself is fine.

(no subject)

From slate:
USA Today leads with FBI statistics that show more than one-third of police officers killed last year were not wearing body armor. While most police officers have access to bullet-resistant vests, some estimate that up to 50 percent choose not to wear them, mostly because they're not exactly comfortable.

..or maybe because they apparently make you twice as likely to get killed?

Yeah yeah they probably put them on when they know they're going to get shot at. Still. q:3

So... Alan Greenspan presides over a long period of prosperity, then leaves and his replacement sees the economy falter and sputter for a while and then tank. Obviously, it's all Greenspan's fault, because he didn't ensure that everything he did would last for all eternity.

One thing to keep in mind -- the economy is a bubble. If a bubble is huge and can't be sustained, it'll eventually pop, so you should be ready for that, but if *all* the bubbles pop, we're fucked. It's been this way since the invention of money. That was a LONG TIME AGO, and we really don't want to go back to the standards of living we enjoyed then.

No matter how cool Mad Max is.

Oh, and one other thing -- have there been any good movies lately? I haven't been paying attention.